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Three years ago Kathleen Culhane was heading home after attending a taproom opening in Minneapolis, and she was thinking about how she’d like to work in a brewery. Then it hit her. She didn’t want to work in a brewery; she wanted to own one. Three years and many hundreds of hours of work later her dream has become reality as Sidhe Brewing Company opens it doors in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Founder Kathleen Culhane at Sidhe Brewery [Photo: C. Schulz]

What makes Sidhe Brewery different from other craft beer breweries across the country is hinted at in its logo, the artwork hanging in the taproom, the names of the beers, and the pentacle hanging around Ms. Culhane’s neck. This brewery is owned by four very out of the broom closet Pagans.

Culhane is the founder and head brew mistress. Rosemary Kosmatka keeps the books; Robin Kinney is the secretary; and Erica Rogers handles operations. Culhane owns 52% of the brewery, while the other three partners each have a 16% interest. Not only are all four women business partners, but they also share a house and are all practicing witches.

Culhane said that it was never a consideration to hide their faith, “We’re just going to be who we are and be obvious about who we are and if people figure it out, great. And then of course City Pages called us a “Wiccan brewery” – yeah, we’re out of the broom closet now, not that we were ever really in it.”

And, that is very apparent to anyone entering the taproom. Goddess art and a large painting of a full moon by artist Aneesa Erinn Adams adorn the walls of the brightly lit, 68 seat taproom. Culhane said that the painting will change as other artists display and sell their artwork through the brewery. There’s also a stage area where musicians can perform and where open mic poetry nights can be held.

Full Moon painting hangs above the stage in the taproom [photo Cara Schulz]

The owners’ openness has already attracted a few protesters, leading up to their Grand Opening weekend. Culhane said that the group was small, and she’d be pleased to talk with them if they return.

Brewing as a Ritual
The brewery was originally called Four Elements, but was changed to Sidhe after a problem trademarking the name. The logo design, which reflects the original name and features a pentacle in the center, also shows Culhane’s theory that brewing beer is a type of ritual, “It occurred to me when I first started to think about this that there was a perfect one-to-one correspondence between a standard Wiccan ritual and brewing because you combine air with water and fire and it creates spirit. When you brew, you combine hops, yeast, and water and you make beer.”

Culhane said that, once she made that realization, the ritual she now uses to make each batch of beer practically wrote itself. Each brewing also ends with a Great Rite.

Magic isn’t just in the beer, it was built right into the brewery, “Once we got the space, we purged it and gave it a good blessing and then when I built the walls I put stones in all the corners and I welded stones into the brewery itself so they are embedded in the posts.” Her working altar, nestled in a toolbox, is visible from the taproom.

A working altar visible from the taproom. [Photo C. Schulz]

Wicca also influences Culhane’s work ethic. She said that one Wiccan concept guiding her is that while doing magic to manifest Will, you must also do work in the mundane world. This work supports the magic and makes it happen.

Culhane has done the work. Not only is she the head brewer, but she has also remodeled the facility and built the brewing equipment herself. She said that she has needed to be very self-reliant because she didn’t have many monetary resources. This is also why the Sidhe brewery is the smallest in the Twin Cities. Culhane could only build what she could afford out of her own pocket, or what her partners contributed by cashing out their retirement savings.

The Beers
For such a small brewery, they have a wide selection of beers on tap. Bast Kissed is a cream ale named after one of Culhane’s cats, who enjoys malted barley. Sol Victorious is a bright Mexican style lager. Hopped Up McGonigal, an IPA created at the request of a friend, is not overly bitter like many craft IPAs. Barking Cat is Belgian ale with a strong flavor and a similarly strong alcoholic kick. Greenman’s Harvest, an American nut brown ale first made for a friend’s wedding back in 1998, has a slightly caramel flavor. Dark Moon Rising, a Stout, is the darkest of all the beers offered.

The craft beer industry is highly competitive with a 24% failure rate among microbreweries, according to the Brewers Association. Therefore, it remains to be seen if Sidhe Brewing Company will be successful. They appear to have all the right ingredients for a successful brewery; owners with business experience and a willingness to put in long hours, solid beers, and an attractive taproom. Could magic be the edge needed in such a crowded market? Perhaps so.

“Brewing is magic,” said Culhane, “and I think that it makes the beer taste better.”

Tomorrow I’ll be on a flight to Maryland for the 2011 FaerieCon event, at which I’ll be conducting interviews, taking pictures, and moderating panel discussions (in addition to seeing Qntal in concert).

Since I’m not sure I’ll have enough time to blog properly while also covering the event, I’ve arranged a variety of guest-posters during my absence to keep the lights on here at The Wild Hunt. Tomorrow we’ll be featuring a guest-post from Patheos columnist and Killing the Buddha Contributing Editor Eric Scott, and we have several other wonderful Pagan voices lined in the days to follow. Patheos Pagan Portal manager Star Foster will be behind the scenes making sure the trains run on time. I’ll return on Tuesday, and should have some great coverage to share when I get back!

In the meantime, before I go, here are some news stories I’d like to share with you.

A Slate.com article on female craft beer producers reminds us that it was women (and goddesses) who gave us the gift of beer. Quote: “Brewing is currently seen as a male field, but it wasn’t always this way. What’s believed to be the world’s oldest written recipe is for beer, and it celebrates a female brewmaster. Four-thousand-year-old Mesopotamian clay tablets describe the brewing process in a hymn to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer. From ancient Sumeria through medieval Europe, women ruled the kettles.”

“The more that you’re involved in this organization [Planned Parenthood] the more demonic you realize it is,” Smith said. “Many of the employees of Planned Parenthood and abortion mills, the actual killing centers, the employees are actual witches. They belong to Wiccan and there’s nothing more valuable to Satan than the blood of innocent babies.”

“Since then the Toledo, Ohio, abortion clinic where Abigail’s mother worked has moved to a new location, although it is still owned by the same woman, a Wiccan when Abigail knew her. Abigail’s mother has also moved on, so I don’t know if the nefarious practices and conditions Abigail observed are ongoing.”

First, she said, the changing of the generational guard is being affected by a change in land values. Many of the groups—Pagan and otherwise—that bought land and set up intentional communities in the 1970s and 1980s were able to live off the land with little or no outside income. Now that land prices have increased so greatly in some areas, buyers need outside income to make the mortgage payments. Or, they need to be retired people with sufficient assets to invest and use for living expenses.

“I see now on my land in Northern California that the community is aging. The people who are moving in who can afford to buy tend to be retired,” she said. “You can’t ask Cynthea and Patricia to just give it (the Diana’s Grove acreage) away. That’s their retirement money. But the people who might be interested in taking it on, may not have the resources.”

It all comes back to the need for infrastructure, and how hard that can be to manage for a movement as decentralized and diverse as modern Paganism. While our growing (and aging) community often wants some of the amenities that other faith communities have (land, buildings, retirement communities, service organizations, charities), the individual faiths within Paganism are still too small to build/buy such resources, and the movement as a whole is often too diverse to effectively pool resources for such things. I have no doubt that eventually we’ll see more infrastructure within modern Paganism, but it may not come as soon as some would wish.

“Evangelical movements along with neo-pagan movements locally and abroad are possibly the beginnings of something much larger. Next, we take a look at the rebirth of ancient religions. To call it an actual rebirth is somewhat of a misnomer since the neo-pagan movements are not a true revival of a religion once practiced in the region. Instead, as with the example of the Latvian Dievturiba (literally ‘keeping God’) movement, we see religion constructed from ancient practices.”

The article looks at Dievturiba, Romuva, Maausk, and Taaralased, many of which are seeing thriving communities growing in the Baltic diaspora. Also mentioned is the upcoming observance of Velu Laiks (“the time of spirits”), which share many commonalities with the holidays like Samhain.

Since the late 1970s, human remains in museum collections have been subject to claims and controversies, such as demands for repatriation by indigenous groups who suffered under colonisation, particularly in Australia, North America and Canada. But Dr Jenkins says that such appeals are not confined to once-colonised groups. British pagans formed Honouring the Ancient Dead in 2004 to campaign for reburial and respect for pre-Christian skeletons from the British Isles. Dr Jenkins said: “The profession is over-reacting to the claims of small minority groups – such as the Pagan organisation, Honouring the Ancient Dead. Most remarkable of all is that human remains of all ages, and which are not the subject of claims-making by any community group, have become subject to concerns about their handling, display and storage, expressed by influential members of the museum profession.”

“I’m sorry we offended the pagan community. But our labels are original pieces of artwork. I’m standing behind the art and the artist’s imagination.” … At least one of Lost Abbey’s four co-owners would bow to these concerns. “I would change the label,” Vince Marsaglia said. “That’s one of a million labels you could put on that beer.” But Marsaglia said he’ll defer to the person who runs Lost Abbey day-to-day. And what would that person change about the label? “Nothing,” Tomme Arthur insisted.”

Observant readers will also note that Rowe interviewed me for the article. I’m afraid our nuanced conversation about Pagan opinions over this controversy were somewhat cherry-picked in the rather glib final version, but I tried to emphasize to him that there is no clear consensus within our communities over this issue. Whether this controversy dies down, or continues to gain stream, remains to be seen.

In his e-mail to Ms. Eller, Mr. Marsaglia also wrote, contritely, that he and his colleagues “would really like to have some kind of contest for a great label.” Mr. Arthur said the board would meet after Halloween to determine exactly how to decide on that new label. But whatever the means, the incident has made allies of Ms. Eller, often derided as an enemy of modern paganism, and Ms. Noble, its defender. Ms. Noble looks forward to a time when she can, with clear conscience, sample a Witch’s Wit. “I think that would be fun,” she says. “Maybe we can make a ceremony out of it.”

Reaction to news of the impending label-change has been mixed. While Noble, Eller, and their supporters, are no doubt pleased, others like media critic Peg Aloi thought the whole matter was a “ludicrous campaign of whiny nonsense”, while Chas Clifton notes that“when it comes to the word “witch,” we want it both ways—safe and edgy.” As for why the New York Times would cover this little tempest between Pagans, Goddess-worshipers, and a small brewery in California, you only need to look at the byline. Author/journalist Mark Oppenheimer rarely misses an opportunity to point out the historical exaggerations or revisions of the Pagan community, so I doubt he could resist reporting on the confluence of Noble, Eller, and a controversy involving a beer label.

“Just a few years ago, the Air Force Academy was considered such an evangelical hothouse that the place got sued for its alleged discrimination against non-Christians. Today, the Academy is boasting of its thriving pagan community — and its friendliness towards spell-casters.”

“First of all, it’s an insult to me as an ordained Pagan minister and long-time practicing witch. If you want to capitalize on the beer’s name in order to sell more brews, at least use a more tasteful image. Hex, I could accept a picture of the stereotypical wart-nosed, green-skinned ugly old hag over this. But to show a buxom woman standing helplessly as the flames engulf her… while a group of onlookers (presumably male monks) surround her gawking at the sight is simply degrading.”

“Can you imagine them showing a black person being lynched or a Jewish person going to the oven? No, of course not, such images are simply not tolerated in our society anymore (thank the Goddess) and this one should not be either. Please call them or write them a letter to protest this hateful and dangerous expression which dehumanizes women.”

“I encourage you to look at all of Lost Abbey’s beers and consider them in context. Each of the Lost Abbey beers features a label which depicts a theme of Catholic excess — good and bad — on the front, and tells a moral story on the back. (Our founder is a recovering Catholic.) In the case of Witch’s Wit, the back label is a story of the bad consequences of religious intolerance and oppression. The woman on the front is referred to as a “healer” on the label and accuses the Church of being narrow-minded and violent, threatening the same fate to anyone who would help the woman. The label ends with a note that this beer — a light, sweet and golden ale — is brewed in honor of that woman (and all those who died for their convictions).”

I’ll be interested to see how Noble and others who were offended will respond to this.

“The URI is the world’s largest, grassroots interfaith organization, with 496 local branches (“Cooperation Circles”) in 77 countries, involving millions of people in interfaith programs around the world (www.uri.org). The purpose of the URI is “to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation; to end religiously motivated violence; and o ctraete cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings.” I worked with many others – including CoG’s Deborah Ann Light – in the writing of the URI’s Charter in conferences in 1998-2000.

This is my third term on the URI’s Global Council. In 2002, I was elected to be one of three Trustees from the North American Region on the URI’s first elected Global Council. In 2006, I was asked to be one of two At-Large Trustees on the URI’s second elected Global Council. This time, on the third elected Global Council, I am again one of two At-Large Trustees, the other being Swami Agnivesh of New Delhi, India.”

“The Daily Mail had someone waiting for us on the steps to take the petition. I handed it over and he promised that he would get it to Robin Esser. I made damn sure I got a handshake and thankfully, someone was quick enough to take a photo of that. At the PCC, Simon Yipp, the gentleman who has been dealing with complaints RE this article, came down personally to recieve the petition. I’m going to give it a week and email both the DM and the PCC for updates, if I don’t hear from them before then.”

“David Shorey. a practicing Druid (a form of Paganism) with Sacramento Grove of the Oak, says “Halloween or as we call it Samhain, is a time to honor the ancestors, look at the past year and honor those who have passed on.” Shorey recognizes that Halloween has evolved into a secular holiday for most Americans and says he and his fellow Druids celebrate with candy and costumes as well as in a traditional Pagan manner. “We’re actually going to be celebrating on the following weekend where we’re going to do an ancestors feast, where folks come together and bring a dish that recognizes and honors their ancestry,” Shorey said.”

“There were some spooky goings on this week at the fair around the Frieze Project devised by the artist and Fortean Times contributor Jeffrey Vallance, who asked five psychics to channel the spirits of blockbusting artists Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollock, Leonardo da Vinci and Marcel Duchamp. Before the mediums—and the artist phantoms—arrived, the spiritualists predicted: “There might be some problems with electricity.” Before you could say Doris Stokes, the internet crashed during the séance, which meant that a live web broadcast had to be scuppered. It was all to do with “forcefields”, apparently.”

Of course the Internet crashed! Artists, particularly great artists like Kahlo and da Vinci, are/were some of the most potent magic(k) workers around. You don’t invoke them lightly. It’s unseemly, and it’ll play havoc with your electronics.

“Drag yourself to enough roadside historical plaques around the nation’s midsection and you realize this place was built of enclaves … being remote can be good. There’s nothing like a little added geography to solve social friction. Your neighbors will bother you less if you don’t see them. Thanks to the Internet – the witch school is online, after all – and thanks to simple things like decent highways, the isolation is optional. And from trekking Mormons to the kind of frontier refugees who populated the literary prairies of Willa Cather or Laura Ingalls Wilder, there have been few things more American than finding autonomy by opting for isolation.”

“Challengers Dwight Butner and Elaine Lite failed to chip away at incumbents’ support … Lite, a Democratic environmental activist, wanted to slow city growth through greater restrictions on development. The publisher of Critter magazine differed with fellow progressives Freeborn and Newman on partisan elections, opposing the switch from the current nonpartisan system.”

“I offer my apology to all witches and certainly did not intend to offend anyone by insinuating this was done by a witch or witchcraft. This could be a sick prank or someone misusing some sort of religion.”

“Leading the pack is Froach Heather ale. Dating back 2,000 years – a full five centuries before the Romans first invaded – this Scottish brew replaces hops with sweet gale and flowering heather, producing a light, mildly bitter brew redolent of honey and zesty lemon. I first had it near Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland, but you can find it in good bottle shops in the Northwest as well. Froach also brews an Elderberry Black Ale called ‘Ebulum,’ based on a drink formerly enjoyed by 9th-century Welsh Druids. Made with roasted oats, barley and wheat, it is boiled with herbs and then fermented with ripe elderberries, yielding a rich black ale with fruity aroma, soft roasted flavour and gentle finish – perfect by-the-fireplace-sipping beer.”

In accordance with my Germanic roots I’m partial to a tall Hefe-weizen with a twist of lemon. Its very tasty.

“Waller, who was once thrown off Celebrity Fit Club for binge eating, said they planned to have a pagan wedding ceremony. Miss Bliss, 23, agreed – but only if Waller ended his singing career. ‘This is definitely the real thing and, although our pagan beliefs mean that ours isn’t an engagement in the conventional sense, we have bought rings as a gesture of love and commitment to each other,’ said the singer.”

No word yet on why his Pagan wife would want him to stop singing, especially since most Pagans are quite fond of music and performing.

“Strangely, there are some who seem to pine for the days when the Essex Street pedestrian mall became a barren expanse the day after Labor Day, and every other storefront had a vacancy sign. You can visit many other older urban retail districts for that experience – and we bet their mayors would dearly love to have an event like Haunted Happenings that kept stores, restaurants and parking facilities full for a month each autumn.”

You can bet that so long as Salem is pulling in profits of over 100,000 dollars (after expenses), then the spooky, Pagan-friendly festivities will certainly continue.